For an explanation of how we determined our Top 50 albums of 2012 (and for a look at albums 75 to 51), see our first post in the series, Top Albums of 2012, 75 to 51.

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20. Christian Mistress – Possession

As ’80s as a mound of nose candy and far more addictive, Possession’s retro sweetness stood tall in a year packed with throwbacks. Their secret? Transcending mere imitation in favor of innovation. From opening barnburner “Over & Over” to one-two knockout punches “Black to Gold” and “There is Nowhere”, six-string duo Ryan McClain and Oscar Sparbel thread old school rhythms and leads through a decidedly modern prism. Christine Davis expands her inner monologue lyrics to potent topics like religion and self-control, her husky voice lending the words equal parts heavy metal gravitas and HxCx soul-bearing. Relapse issued the promo a full two months before its February release date and I’m still jamming Possession on multiple formats on a weekly basis. I need an old priest and a young priest . . .— Greg Majewski

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Christian Mistress – “Pentagram and Crucifix”

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19. Nachtmystium – Silencing Machine

Blake Judd has just about come full circle. After half a decade in the pop-metal wilderness, he and his current team of Chicago journeymen (members of Lord Mantis and Indian, plus Sanford Parker) have penned a set of tunes that recalls Instinct: Decay, Nachtmystium’s breakout effort. It’s a sound worth returning to; Silencing Machine’s pairing of relatively conservative black metal with layers of delicate noise suits Judd’s strengths better than cocaine disco jams ever did. — Doug Moore

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Nachtmystium – “The Lepers of Destitution”

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18. Enslaved – RIITIIR

Enslaved continue their evolution on RIITIIR, experimenting with dynamics and textures in a way that makes their earliest releases seem one-dimensional. Kjellson’s growls are as comforting as they are grotesque; Ice Dale’s leads tear through to the heart. The album progression feels natural and inviting. Listen carefully for the roughness of each layer in the mix. As polished as this album is as a whole, it still contains the raw reminders of Enslaved’s badass roots. — Julia Neuman

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Enslaved – “Roots of the Mountain”

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17. Black Breath – Sentenced to Life

Life need not be all intellect all the time. Metal, at its core, is music born of and about aggression. Black Breath don’t write ‘intelligent’ music, but they have aggression in spades. They channel the sound of fist against face, of stagediving faceplant, with stunning results. Sentenced to Life, powered by HM-2 pedals, D-beats, and a Norwegian black metal sense of nihilism, might be the most compulsively listenable record in Southern Lord’s catalog.— Joseph Schafer

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Black Breath – “Feast of the Damned”

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16. Gojira – L’Enfant Sauvage

There are two ways to look at L’Enfant. First, it’s the sound of a band running in place, not knowing how to top their own masterpiece, but not willing to progress and risk a dud. Second, it’s the sound of a band so good that they can rest on their laurels and still write one of the year’s best albums. A little more melody, a little less weirdness, a bit less heft, and great songs; that’s L’Enfant. — Richard Street-Jammer

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Gojira – “L’Enfant Sauvage”

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15. Deathspell Omega – Drought

How ironic that an EP entitled Drought, as if it were devoid of brilliance, is perhaps the most relatable Deathspell Omega album to date. Whereas normally conceding to DO as superhumans here to remind us of our incompetence, Drought is the centerpiece that lays bare the band’s intricacies, and as such it’s a touch more relatable and a tad more organic than the beautiful clusterfuck of past glories. Opener “Salowe Vision” is total Neil Young gone black metal. — Aaron Maltz

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Deathspell Omega – “Salowe Vision”

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14. Meshuggah – Koloss

It’s been four years since Meshuggah released their last album. During that period, modifying or simply copying their approach has become a niche genre unto itself. Koloss makes it clear that they who did it first still do it best. Brainy rhythms and insectile solos abound, but this album finds its strength in shrewd songwriting and sheer aggression—two qualities that Meshuggah’s imitators typically lack. — Doug Moore

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Meshuggah – “The Demon’s Name is Surveillance”

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13. Asphyx – Deathhammer

With equal measures fierce brutality and slow-rolling menace, the eighth full-length album by the Netherland’s best death metal band is an awesome tour de force. Songs like the title track and “Reign of the Brute” are swift and fuzzy paeans to denim-clad metal traditionalism, while “Minefield” and the gloriously tongue-in-cheek “We Doom You To Death” bring the band’s patented melancholy drone. Modern bands, take heed—this is how death is done. —Scab Casserole

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Asphyx – “As the Magma Mammoth Rises”

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12. Grave – Endless Procession of Souls

On their tenth album, Grave offers no surprises. Why should they? The formula works. It’s Swedish. It’s death metal. It’s old-school. It’s Grave. While Endless isn’t quite as strong as Burial Ground, they did record it with two new members. Even so, it’s not that different. And sometimes, that’s just what you want. — Vanessa Salvia

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Grave – “Passion of the Weak”

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11. Neurosis – Honor Found in Decay

Whether it be the work of Neurosis or one of their numerous side projects, Steve Von Till and Scott Kelly pour an effort into their music that can only be described as earnest and honorable. It only makes sense that Neurosis’ tenth album (and fifth with producer and all-around musical mastermind Steve Albini) is called Honor Found In Decay. Sludgy but sparse, this post-metal record is all muss, no fuss. And stand-out tracks “At the Well” and “We All Rage in Gold” expertly highlight the bleak and parched desert of sound that is Neurosis. After all, nothing gold can stay, Ponyboy. — Kelly Kettering

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53 Comments

pseudoymous

Posted December 27, 2012 at 5:45 AM

_RIITIIR_, like _The Seer_, is an album that’s tough to make it through without interruption. It’s proven to be well worth the effort though. And while, as with previous Enslaved albums, _RIITIIR_ works better as a whole than it does as a series of different tracks, if there were a list of best metal songs of the year, “Roots of the Mountain” would have to be on it.

“Haunted Hunted” off Christian Mistress’s _Possession_ would make that list for me as well. That record got a lot of hype when it came out, but has been conspiciously absent from the year-end lists I’ve seen. Then again, as Greg Majewski points out, it was a crowded year for that style.

Speaking of that style, I can’t remember if The Devil’s Blood’s _The Thousandfold Epicentre_ came out in 2012 or late 2011. I bought it last winter, but it may have been out for a month or two already at that point. Anyway, if it did come in 2012, it should make the list based on its packaging and booklet art alone.

I’m predicting Evoken will be #1 and Pallbearer #2. I honestly haven’t listened to either album all the way through, so I;m making that prediction based on the fact that both have received a lot of praise here and elsewhere.

Does anyone else feel like this was a year when there were a lot of good albums (indeed, more than usual), but not any truly great ones? Maybe it’s just me.

Let me assure you that there is basically no chance that a Between the Buried and Me album will ever make IO’s albums of the year list

…Unless they put out a blackened funeral war doom album. Then it probably would.

I accidentally left Goatwhore off of my list. It would’ve been in the top 15.

Konrad

Posted December 27, 2012 at 6:05 AM

Music doesn’t necessarily need to be innovative or non-aggressive in order to be intelligent. I’m not saying that Black Breath is necessarily an “intellectual” release, but aggressive, short and relatively simple tracks aren’t what keep it from being so. Very nice segment. Probably the best so far, and the albums are well-deserved of the top 20.

The ethos of this site, however, as I interpret, is to intelligize heavy music. I did not review Black Breath here because, honestly, I have a really tough time intelligizing it. Ms Neuman did that herself, and quite well.

I ran into the same problem writing that blurb, I probably went though four, five drafts? It’s more than the short and direct nature of the songs. There’s just something inherently a bit knucklehead about Black Breath, but you know what? that’s part of the charm, and I find that record quite charming.

For what its worth, it was my #1 pick.

Oh, and in regards to the top 10 predictions, I don’t know the list, but i doubt I’d see Drudkh or BTBAM on it. I also know that there’s more than a few members of the staff who did not like the Pallbearer release, myself being one of them.

While I like it, it’s awfully familiar-sounding. I feel the same way about some of 2012’s other high-profile releases (e.g., _Book Burner_), and I think that’s largely why it seemed like a year of good but not great albums to me. A lot of bands delivered the goods, but there were few real surprises.

Maybe that’s my fault for not venturng beyond established bands and checking out more new artists. There was just so much music this year, including a lot of solid releases from various genre stalwarts. And newer bands that surprised me in the recent past–e.g., Krallice, Deathspell Omega–put out records that sounded more or less like how I expected them to sound. On the other hand, some bands that did take chances–e.g., the Melvins–put out material that wasn’t quite on par with past efforts. I got the thrill of discovery a few times–most notably, the day Panopticon’s _Kentucky_ arrived in the mail–but, overall, it was the year of the dependably good.

Maybe metal’s various subgenres have become too rigid, or maybe the fact that I’m much more familiar with those subgenres than I was just a few years ago means I’m less likely to be blown away by something today than I was then.

I think I prefer Neurosis at their most monolithic – for me they really peaked around Through Silver In Blood and Times of Grace.

I don’t know that I was blown away either, but the Pallbearer and Evoken records helped reawaken my love of funeral doom in a way that hasn’t happened since Warning released Watching From A Distance, and the Panopticon record finally draws some connections between American traditions and black metal in a way that really I’d only seen Wrnlrd do, and his stuff is too dense and cryptic to be anything but its own thing – he’s sort of like I imagine Jandek would be if Jandek played black metal. So having a more accessible group start to create a uniquely American black metal idiom (not counting Cascadian black metal or whatever the fuck since that strikes me more as an American localization of a Scandanavian idiom than anything else) is really cool. And holy shit, that fucking Deathspell Omega EP is bonkers in the best way.

Nicely put about Panopticon. My only complaint is that I wish the bluegrass /trad music elements and the black metal elements would have been integrated throughout the album. The three songs that do that are amazing. The straight bluegrass tracks are fine too, but they didn’t grab me in the same way. Plus, if I’m the mood for straight bluegrass, I have lots of non-metal records that fit the bill.

Astral Zombie

Posted December 27, 2012 at 7:33 AM

Well, now that you’ve cleared the way…the new Enslaved is insanely boring, just like the last two were!

I think I’ve read more comments on message boards about people “not getting” Enslaved than people truly enjoying them. As someone whose gym playlist currently consists of their last nine albums on shuffle, I disagree. But I can see how some elements of their sound could detract from the frequently gorgeous moments in many songs.

pseudoymous

Posted December 27, 2012 at 7:39 AM

Side C is boring, but my OCD demands that I listen to it anyway each time I put the record on.

Amen (or should I say Infernal Hails). Boring indeed, to the point that they put me in a bad mood.
Among the early 90s Norse bands who are still around, at least Darkthrone evolved (or devolved is maybe a better word) their sound while still remaining badass. I wish they had put out a record this year.

I heard that from probably the same source a few weeks ago but didn’t want to include it in my blurb since it’s not officially confirmed. It’s certainly a bummer if it’s true, especially since I missed their gig last year at Eli’s Mile High in Oakland. Heard their live shows were vicious.

Whoa. That’s a hell of show, especially for free. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen Thrones (the last time was that tour he did with Isis, and he played in a hallway that led to the main part of the venue), but both times I saw Joe Preston do his thing it was amazing. When I lived in Bloomington, I used to drive up to Indy a couple of times a year to see Bible of the Devil, who seemed like they were perpetually on tour. They are a really fun band, and I’m a little puzzled that they haven’t become more popular given the current vogue for traditional metal with big hooks. They do that sound just about as well as anybody else out there.

Carm

Posted December 27, 2012 at 11:53 AM

You only really need to seen Thrones once.

As far as Bible of the Devil, they have work commitments so they can’t really do extensive touring. I do appreciate the fact they do the Alehorn of Power Fest every year though. They’ve brought Manilla Road, Slough Feg, Dawnbringer, Superchrist, Ludicra and Hammers of Misfortune to play those Alehorn of Power Fests throughout the years.

pseudoymous

Posted December 27, 2012 at 12:26 PM

I guess that explains why they played in Indy a lot: it’s a short drive from Chicago. And agree that they play with cool bands. I saw them with Valkyrie and Earthride, and another time with High Spirits. Anyway, why “The Turning Stone” and “Ol’ Girl” weren’t number one hits on the Billboard charts is beyond me.

Cottondikhole

Posted December 28, 2012 at 8:38 AM

Thrones rules every time I see him. Always different, never falling into a top ten cliche.

trumbum

Posted December 28, 2012 at 2:04 PM

saw them on that tour, unfortunately the sound sucked at the shitty dive they were playing in charlotte, nc. milestone, milehigh something like that, dont quite remember. it would suck if they broke up but at least we got two killer releases out of it. didn’t stick around for but half of the thrones set, nicest guy in the world but it’s just not my thing.

Amjad Faur

Posted December 27, 2012 at 11:23 AM

I live in Olympia, WA and I was talking to Ryan’s girlfriend at her vintage clothing shop. She confirmed that they did indeed break up.

I think it was just an issue of getting too big too fast. They broke up after a European tour and I think some of them were just wary of the expectations of success.

pseudoymous

Posted December 27, 2012 at 7:54 AM

Speaking of dependably good, if any thrash metal band cracks the top ten, I’m betting it’s Testament. Their new album was really strong, but Overkill’s was even better. Excited that the two bands are touring together in the spring. Should be a fun as hell show.

Also, I love Enslaved up through “Ruun”, but they’ve seriously lost the plot…like Opeth minus dynamics and the ability to write actual songs and not just alternating two parts for eight minutes, and trying to mask the lack of both with monotonous clean vocals and simplistic leads.